Who/what is to blame?

[melonhead]

SJM would probably have just fobbed us off with the old - something changed during that time which meant we could no longer provide the funds we thought we could- line,
But we know the truth - that he was just teasing all along, for his own twisted enjoyment.
The bastard

Or he thought we could cope without investment as we were in the mix.

the only way he can make his money back on us is if we are in the prem.
if he had it, he'd spend it

[Royal Biscuitman]

Is player performance, and home record not effectively the same thing?

But if the performance is due to the players being played when injured or the manager playing out of form due to lack of investment then you could tick the injuries, manager or owner options too.

[melonhead]

exactly that

[Hoop Blah]

And wouldn't it be simple if motivation was so easy.

Sorry Nigel, but it's a big part of your job

Well fcuk me, perhaps that's why I said Adkins short comings this year were one of the three main causes for the relative disappointing results.

[stealthpapes]

'Main' reason was an inability to beat weaker teams at home. Home record is 8-10-5. Look at the league table and other teams with ~ 8 home wins are 15th to 18th.

As my brother said at the time, the Yeovil game ended up 2 massively dropped points.

There's obviously a reason as to why this is.

I blame the fans.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Or he thought we could cope without investment as we were in the mix.

the only way he can make his money back on us is if we are in the prem.
if he had it, he'd spend it

But like his attitude in previous seasons when he WAS interested in us, perhaps he's living by the ideology that we might get promotion without the risk of investment.

You've said before, it's all very well saying if you invest you have a better chance of promotion but what happens if you spend a load of dosh and fail? Then you are in an even worse position.

It's quite possible that Madge had the money for say, Bairds wages, looked at our position and thought: "I probably don't need to spend that money" or "I'm just not risking it".

His right obvs. Just saying him not investing is not necessarily proof he has no money with which to do so. In which case, you could possibly hold that as a valid criticism of his ownership, as it has been throughout his tenure (not spending when perhaps it was important we do).

Can't force him to spend. But a non-spending owner isn't a particularly good one and certainly could be held part of the problem when a team fails in it's ambitions.

[melonhead]

It's not valid though unless there's people out there willing to throw money into a bottomless pit that he could have sold to.

And due to failure to get promoted his shares are pretty much worthless so would have been a daft gamble

[P!ssed Off]

'Main' reason was an inability to beat weaker teams at home. Home record is 8-10-5. Look at the league table and other teams with ~ 8 home wins are 15th to 18th.

As my brother said at the time, the Yeovil game ended up 2 massively dropped points.

There's obviously a reason as to why this is.

I blame the fans.

Not much difference between Yeovil (home) and Yeovil (away).
We looked shit in both.

[Maguire]

Adkins

Drenthe

Guthrie

Queensley

[Extended-Phenotype]

It's not valid though unless there's people out there willing to throw money into a bottomless pit that he could have sold to.

And due to failure to get promoted his shares are pretty much worthless so would have been a daft gamble

It is valid if it is a choice he is making.

And maybe he is daft. Surely the money for say, Baird could have come from somewhere. Not saying that Baird would have secured us 6th, just saying that surely it's not a matter of JM being unable to invest, and more a matter of him deciding not to?

[KC Royal]

Went for home record as my main choice, and to a lesser degree Nigel Adkins, but also would have gone with ownership issue if there had been a 3rd option.

Home record - The Yeovil game I felt at the time would cost us Top 6. Don't even blame Adkins for this, the players on the pitch should have been able to beat the 8 men of the bottom side. I do think in the last few months the players felt the pressure in the home games we were expected to win, just like in 2009.
Adkins - At the start of the season my optimism did drop when it became apparent that we would be playing 4-5-1/4-2-3-1 for a fair bit of the season. If we'd played a high tempo 4-4-2 (which would also get the best out of ALF) like we did in the last 2 home games, and it seems in the last half hour at Donny, it may well have led to a different outcome. I also wonder if Adkins is perhaps too tactical in his approach to games, so when the plan isn't working and we go a goal down the players lack the belief or the ideas to turn it around. Even last season the first goal seemed to have a massive bearing on how the rest of the match would go.
Ownership - after Kebe and Mariappa left in the summer had a gut feeling that we might narrowly miss out on the playoffs and that never really went away. We also never really adequately replaced Karacan imo, who we missed. I think he would have provided the goals from centre mid that we lacked when Williams was injured on the evidence of what he'd done since Adkins took over.

[ddetisi]